John Hurrell – 12 February, 2026

Made with black ink, a thin brush and white paper, these humorous drawings, each with a punchline, are calculated to generate chuckles. How often they continue to do so is open to debate, but British artist David Shrigley has for many years made a career from his one-liners—and the International Artworld is clearly richer for it. This is his second show at Two Rooms. He was their Artist in Residence in 2015.

The twenty-five images (that usually incorporate a little textual language) are rough hewn in their draftsmanship, as if slickness or prettiness were anathema to this internationally-famed art star. Somehow their anti-elegant droopy ‘lopsidedness’ (that exudes a sort of scratchy innocence or perhaps the opposite, snippy cynicism) is part of their shambling but wry appeal. I imagine many art-lovers would find them hideous.

Colour and consistently coordinated pleasing proportions are therefore ignored, being willfully ugly (deliberately breaking the conventions of ‘good’ draftsmanship in order to be funny and maybe create a new sort of scruffy beauty)…and perhaps inducing cacophonous snorts, instead of espousing the optically tasteful and aesthetically beguiling. They seem to follow the tradition of the ‘amateurish’ drawings found in books by the late great John Lennon, by being perceived as ‘oafish’.

There is an argument that besides chasing quick laughs, Shrigley is also presenting some serious (maybe even profound) ideas. About fame, identity, fashion, aesthetics and even (ahem!) reality in general. That they have an important dimension that is hidden by their apparent flipancy.

However because he also makes sculpture, painting, films and music, these inventive but often seemingly ‘peculiar’ images have a much broader visual context, ouside of being simply drawing; via links through their formal, structural and conceptual attributes. They are firmly embedded within the wide contemporary fine arts community, and as ‘cackhanded doodles’ are subsequently much loved and respected.

John Hurrell

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